Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
Veteran Indian journalist Yusuf Jameel, was chosen for and awarded the ‘2019-2020 PEN-Gauri Lankesh Award for Democratic Idealism’. The award was presented to him, for his revolutionary journalism in Jammu and Kashmir, during the insurgency period.
PEN International is a global association of writers, which was founded in 1921. PEN South India and PEN Delhi have instituted the annual award to cherish and honour the assassinated journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh. The award is offered to an individual or organisation, whose work demonstrates courageous and democratic journalism, on birth anniversary of Gauri Lankesh.

Notes:
Veteran diplomat Vinay Mohan Kwatra has been recently appointed as India’s next ambassador to Nepal, as per the recent announcement made by the Ministry of External Affairs.
Vinay Kwatra is a 1988 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, who is currently serving as the Ambassador of India to Paris. He has now replaced Manjeev Singh Puri who has attained superannuation from service. Vinay Kwatra has held instrumental positions in several organisations including Permanent Mission of India in Geneva, SAARC Secretariat in Nepal, Embassy of India in Washington among others.

Notes:
After nearly four years of the referendum voted by the British people for Brexit, the United Kingdom officially left the European Union, at 11.00 p.m on January 31, 2020.
After Britain left the bloc, the European Union has 27 more countries. The process by which the member state leaves the Union has expired and UK has entered the transition period, which will remain till December 31, 2020. The UK will continue to obey the EU laws and courts during the transition period. A new 50-pence coin was launched recently to mark the occasion.

Notes:
A new scheme was proposed in the budget, which is to be implemented by the Aviation Ministry, for transporting agricultural products of farmers. The scheme was named as ‘Krishi Udan Scheme’.
The scheme is to be launched by the ministry on both international and national routes, which will improve the value realisation on the agricultural products of the farmers. The scheme will assist the farmers with more focus on north-east and tribal districts. The UDAN scheme was launched in 2016, to boost regional connectivity at affordable air-fares. The airlines are provided concessions from the centre, state and airport operators.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had proposed the door-delivery of pension in the state under YSR Pension Kanuka scheme. The process was recently commenced in the state.
The pension has also been increased to ₹2,250 from the earlier ₹1,000 and the eligibility criteria has been revised to provide pension benefit to all the deserved people. The volunteers, with the smartphones containing biometric information of the pensioners will visit the beneficiaries and process the pension payment.

Notes:
After several months of protests, Iraq has named Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as its next Prime Minister. The Iraq President Barham Salih has appointed the former Minister of Communications as the next Prime Minister.
Mohammed Allawi was appointed as the head as the previous Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned in last November, after mass demonstrations against the government. The new Prime Minister is expected to lead the government until early elections. He is set to form the new government in a month’s time.

Notes:
India and Maldives signed 5 agreements for establishing ‘Addu Tourism zone’ in five islands of Addu atoll. An atoll is a ring-shaped chain of islands formed of coral.
The Tourism zone is expected to be set up at a cost of $2.49 million. It aims at generating local employment and boost the eco-tourism opportunities in Addu. The High Commissioner of India Sunjay Sudhir signed the MoUs with the Maldives Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulla Shahid and Addu City Council. Another MoU to establish a bottled water plant in Hoarafushi was also inked.

Notes:
The 26-year-old Indian Table Tennis player, Harmeet Desai was seen in news as he clinched his maiden title in the National Table Tennis championship held recently.
In the hard-fought finals, he defeated another top-rated player Manav Thakkar and won the men’s singles title. Manav Thakkar has earlier defeated the top seeded player G. Sathiyan in the semi-finals. Harmeet Desai, an Arjuna awardee, had also won the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship title in 2019. Sutirtha Mukherjee won the women’s singles title, for the second time in a row.

Notes:
The state Government of Kerala declared the disease caused by the novel coronavirus as a “state calamity”. This declaration comes at the backdrop of three people of the state being tested positive for coronavirus.
Kerala reported the first infection from the virus in India and the person is being treated in isolation wards. Later two other patients, who are the students of a medical college in Wuhan, China are also diagnosed with the virus infection. The novel coronavirus was first reported in China’s Wuhan city and has spread to nearly 25 other countries.

Notes:
World Cancer Day is organized by the Union for International Cancer Control and celebrated every year on February 4, from 2000. This year the theme of the campaign is ‘I am and I will’.
The World Cancer Day campaign was first created in the year 2000, and this year’s is the 20th edition of the day. It is observed to create awareness about the disease across the world and to improve individual and government action. The campaign aims at reducing the number of premature deaths from cancer and noncommunicable diseases by one third by 2030.